We learned that being clear about who we are speaking to makes writing much easier. At one of our workshops we spent some time discussing our list of the purposes for keeping case notes to identify the audience for each one. For some purposes, we are writing for ourselves. For others we are definitely writing for others.

Then we created a list of the kind of information we wanted to share with other members of the staff team. We used these categories as headings in templates for our case notes. We created two formats (a page and a chart) and started using these templates. Here are the headings we now use in our case notes:

Context (program structure + potential for change)

Staff engagement (how are staff engaged in the process)

What we see happening (what happened, what worked, how did goals shift etc.)

What could be shared? With whom? (what we learn from programs, promising practices, tools and resources, and what we develop as coaches)

Post-coaching developments (what has happened since coaching)

Connections (who needs to connect)

Action Items (to-do list arising from the reflections)

Questions (imponderables, is this what is happening elsewhere, not technical)

Next steps

Reflections -- How else could I have managed the situation?

We hoped that having a shared archive would make it easier for us to learn from each other. So we created a private Google Drive folder. We looked at other solutions but at this point, this is the one that works best for us.